Her substance abuse started when she was a teen, and like many incarcerated women today, her addictions landed her in prison after prison. On one of her brief stretches of freedom, she violated parole and was also pregnant with me.

My incarcerated mother lost her parental rights and the authorities placed me in foster care, then later adoption. This may sound like a fairy tale ending to a tragic beginning, but instead, I self-medicated with drugs to navigate through the loss, trauma, and sorrow from my early years. I traveled a similar path of addiction as my prison mother.

This is what a new law in Tennessee will perpetuate: feeding the cycle of addiction and trauma across generations. The law criminalizes pregnant women who use drugs, and allows prosecutors to charge a drug-abusing mother with "fetal assault." The law passed even with disagreement from leading experts like the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, all leaders in the field of wellness for mothers and pre-natal care.

Last week, Tennessee arrested the first mother under this new law. Proponents say drug treatment is always available pre-arrest, but in truth, the wait list for affordable treatment programs is long. Supporters also claim the law is intended to reduce illegal use of drugs by pregnant women, but the reality is, the law will make sure the women avoid pre-natal care out of fear of arrest.

The Current Facts Of Incarceration Are Too Stunning To Ignore

According to Bureau of Justice statistics and a study from The Pew Center on the States, the incarceration rate for women has risen 800 percent in the last 20 years, and the rate of incarceration for drug crimes increased tenfold between 1980 and 2010. The number of children under 18 with a mother in prison has more than doubled since 1991.

2.3 million children have a parent in prison. That's 3% of all children in the U.S. and it's a population larger than the state of Delaware, larger than San Francisco, and Philadelphia.

The United States represents 5% of the world's population, yet has 25% of the world's prison population. If the U.S. continues to treat addiction as a criminal justice issue rather a public health concern, the longer we'll stay number one as the world's largest jailer.

For the sake of the children and our communities, the solution is to figure out what works to end the cycle of addiction. Policy-makers need to direct their focus and funding toward medical and rehab services, not sentencing and punishment for mothers who are addicted.

Now that I've been clean 20 years, I work across the country with women in prisons and drug rehab centers. I've stood face to face with thousands and thousands of women and also men and youth in prison, and see first hand: addiction is not a crime, it's a public health and mental health issue.

Do we want policies that support the health concerns of mothers and babies, or do we want laws that harm? We must challenge the current law in Tennessee, and make sure this does not set a precedent. We need community healthcare, treatment, and mental health services, not more incarceration.

Deborah Jiang-Stein is founder of The unPrison Project. She's a public speaker and author of the memoir, "Prison Baby," and a forthcoming collection of interviews, "Women Behind Bars." ]]>Happy Mamas Day to Mothers in Prisontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.52652012014-05-05T15:01:43-04:002014-07-05T05:59:04-04:00Deborah Jiang Steinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-jiang-stein/And to other mothers who bear the brunt of hurtful policies

The wreckage of sentencing a pregnant woman who's also an addict costs our society more than the price of prison. I know first hand. My beloved biological mother, a chronic heroin addict, gave birth to me in a prison where I then lived with her for a year before removal into foster care and then adoption. I was born drug-exposed and I know the trauma and the development problems as a result of this. My family, the schools I attended, and the community, all paid the high costs of needing extra resources to address the havoc and aftermath.

On the other side, I am now evidence of how family support, community health care and wellness alternatives, and access to community resources, all set a positive path to wholeness, health and full citizenship.

The rate of increase in incarceration is one of the largest open bleeding wounds in the United States, for women especially. The U.S. imprisons more than any other country in the world, and for women, the rate of incarceration has increased 800 percent over a 20-year period, according to the Bureau of Justice. The number for men is half this. These dramatic facts are too stunning to ignore, and we pay great costs for this at the community level -- nearly 3 million children, most under the age of 10, have a parent in prison in the U.S.

Let's pay attention to the fractured families and the children left behind. Babies born in prison often enter the foster care system, as was my case. The cost of traumatized mothers and their children impacts school systems, neighborhoods and families. Why not re-direct tax dollars to community alternatives like treatment and mental health care rather than pay for these collateral damages later on?

It's time to engage alternatives for incarceration. Most women in prison are sentenced for drug-related nonviolent crimes, and most have experienced physical or psychological abuse sometime or another in their lives. Many have a diagnosable and treatable mental illness. Let's begin to view drug-related incarceration for what it is -- a public health problem not a criminal justice issue, because treatment and mental health alternatives have proven results.

Addiction is a treatable disease, but most recently, apparently not in Tennessee. Against the advice major medical associations, including the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Governor Bill Haslam signed a bill to allow prosecutors to charge a woman with criminal assault if she uses illegal drugs during her pregnancy.

Gov. Haslam reasons that the newborn is considered a victim and harmed as a result, yet he's ignored that pregnancy outcomes have more to do with access to prenatal health care, including mental health care. None of this is available in prisons or jails at the level necessary to treat an addicted mother.

This legislation is a dangerous precedent. It sentences two generations at a time, and a double life sentence for the baby because of the trauma of separation from her/his incarcerated mother. Tennessee will pay for this in the back end and will now endure a greater burden, that of caring for the children born to incarcerated mothers. It increases the burden on state budgets.

A call to action on Change.org asks Governor Bill Haslam to reverse his decision to prosecute women who are pregnant and addicted. The call is to then redirect resources and engage a committee to explore community alternatives for treatment, counseling and mental and physical health care for pregnant women who are addicted.

Putting women in prison for using drugs during pregnancy rather than providing community treatment and mental health care does not help the woman, nor does this help the baby, or society. If you agree, please walk the walk with this campaign and offer your signature of support.

--

To read a personal story about what can happen from a birth in prison and a pregnant incarcerated and addicted mother, read Prison Baby(Beacon Press.) It's my story.

For more facts about the impact of incarceration, visit The unPrison Project, a 501(c)3 nonprofit working to empower, inspire, and cultivate critical thinking, life skills, self-reflection, and peer mentoring for women and girls in prison as tools to plan, set goals, and prepare for a successful life.]]>Persist, Above All Elsetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.45165932013-12-31T09:25:30-05:002014-03-02T05:59:02-05:00Deborah Jiang Steinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-jiang-stein/

One day my then-agent called and in discussion about my millionth draft, she said: No one cares about people in prison. Which pulled me deeper into my pool of persistence because I wanted people to care, I wanted people to know about incarcerated mothers and what happens to the children they leave, the babies they birth in prison... like the infant I was in prison and the birth mother I left behind who had no options, no hope other than to serve her sentence for a non-violent drug-related crime, just like the millions incarcerated today.

I wanted people to care, and, I'd been through much worse in life than manuscript rejection. Also in a short frame of just a few years, I'd stood face to face with thousands of incarcerated women who confront even greater problems, so I just kept going and going, out of bounds and with no agent and before I knew it I was signing a contract for Prison Baby.

Presented with a terrifying deadline of writing an additional 20,000 words in a few months, which for a flash fiction writer seemed impossible, I kept the word -- persist -- in mind the whole time. Etymology fascinates me and I looked up this word I love so much, not just the act of persistence but the sound of the word with all its hiss. I found an unexpected root, from the Latin, sistere, "to stand," and also related to the French, assister and Latin again, assistere "to stand by, help, take a stand near." Right there, I'm led to enthusiasm for the new year ahead.

This year, rather than commit to goals and a vision for the future of 2014, rather than choosing one word to focus on for the year because I lose focus so easily, I plan to cherish the process of "take a stand near." Whether it's to my core values, to stand near them and embrace what I hold true, or whether it's to my commitment to others -- to reach women in prisons with transformative change ideas -- I'm honoring the process of "stand near."

I know too well the opposite of to stand, in my past taken down to the mat on my knees -- from a business crash, losing a house, a family member draining my every financial resource, my every drop of self-esteem destroyed by addiction to drugs and alcohol, and the even darker side of self-hate and rage. I know how to fall. I also know to follow my instincts, especially the one for survival, the instinct to rise up. To stand. What other option is there? I don't see any.

I keep my eye not on the prize, not on a goal. Rather, I set my sight on one thing: stand up. Get up and go, just go, one foot in front of the other. And so I do, I step, even if I crawl first, even if I'm taken down again.

And so with the new year in our presence, I'm traveling into it with what I know works, with the concept of: Persist no matter what, "stand near" to whatever matters in life, because then three truths take hold:

No need to think about an outcome. Why? Because all we can control anyway is our effort, not the results.

Progress, not perfection, becomes a way of life, more than a cliche. Why? Because perfection is our enemy, not a friend.

Just put one foot in front of the other. Why? Because anything beyond is the ledge of an unpredictable future.

I wish for all my readers and friends and family, a year of your best "stand near." Above all else, persist.]]>"Locked in This Little Room, Things Get to You"tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12967232012-02-23T14:17:43-05:002012-04-24T05:12:02-04:00Deborah Jiang Steinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-jiang-stein/Even Tough Girls Wear Tutus: Inside the World of a Woman Born in Prison.

The following is an excerpt from a book-in-progress, near completion, my collected interviews with women in prisons.

After transcribing these interviews, secluded voices not often heard and now turned into monologues, some have been performed as staged readings.

Lost in a gray-and-white striped sweatshirt and faded blue jeans, both a size too large, she crosses and uncrosses her legs. Back and forth. She speaks in a hush and pauses when she can't compete with the clang and clatter from the dining hall down the wing.

Her eyebrows furrow when memories preoccupy her. Before almost each sentence, she flickers her eyelids closed. When they open, she gazes in the distance.

Sometimes her speech hesitates and she braces her chin in the cupped palm of one hand. Half-closed venetian blinds block the bright afternoon sun.

Twenty-something R.M.* has been in and out of prison or youth facilities most of her life.

"In my unit we're crazy people. People that's just wild and obnoxious. For some reason I intimidate quite a few people. It's just because when I get angry with someone I'm not afraid to tell them.

"Sometimes it comes out in a way not so polite. But they're people who need more psychological help than prison can give them and it's hard to live with sometimes.

"You have to adjust to all different kinds of people here. Hard to be around people who don't understand a simple yes or no. But for the most part I think we all know who we can talk to up here and who we just, "Oh hi, how you doin'." You know, just pacify.

"I mean if I was sentenced here for life I guess I could get myself used to this.

"I had a social worker from the time I was little. Six months old. Then before that I was in foster homes or shelters. When I was two they took me in, my foster parents. I was there eleven and one half months. My first foster family took real good care of me. In the institutions I was in, I learned to take care of myself.

"I'm Native American. Grew up with white people in a foster home and I would ask them how come my skin was darker and my hair blacker than my foster sister and brother. There was one girl and one boy other than me. I never got an answer. They would just change the subject.

"In school people teased me, you know how they make Indian noises? I didn't understand but I knew I was different from everybody. And besides, being short, and I always had this short hair. I like it cropped.

"I have seven sisters and four brothers. Same mother. I think it's three different fathers. Everyone went to foster homes originally and then she took everyone back but me. That's another thing I did not never understand. Now I wouldn't bother asking her.

"I know my mom. I met her when I was fifteen, met her for the first time in court. They were trying to take her rights away because this whole time she had parental rights but I didn't know this.

"She was drunk, loud, and obnoxious. There were people around and she was making a scene in the juvenile justice department. I just looked at her and I sat down.

"'If she stops talking so loud,' I said, 'maybe I will. Right now I don't want to associate with her.'

"'There's my baby over there!' she yelled.

"She was like, 'Give me a hug,' and I smelled the booze and piss and... and puke... everything. I stepped back and I just... I reached out my hand.

"I stepped back and shook her hand. Then she insisted on a hug. In court she was talkin' how much she loved me and this and that and I was so angry. My attorney was sitting right next to me and I kept nudging her in the leg.

"Then my mom said, "Well I care about her. She's my daughter."

"I said, 'Well where in the fuck...'

"I said, 'Where were you all this time!? I'm fifteen years old!'

"My lawyer said my face turned beet red. I was getting ready to jump up across the table and the deputies came and grabbed me and took me to the side room. That was the last time I seen her until I was eighteen years old.

"On and off, see, twelve, thirteen, on and off I was in group homes and shelters and treatments and detox. For drinking.

"See, my foster family told my social worker that they couldn't handle me no more so when I was twelve, one day I come home from school, my foster dad wasn't there, just my foster mom. She's all upset. Crying and saying it's the best thing for me. My stuff is packed in her car and off I go. I didn't even... I was just like, whatever.

"I didn't never really think about it until I started being in places like this. Prison. Time after time.

"Place like this makes you think. I write poems. I used to have a whole book full of poems but I think my foster parents have them.

"When I was eighteen I went through eleventh grade then got my GED at the County Workhouse. It was a forced thing.

"I use drugs but I don't shoot cocaine or nothing. I smoke weed and that's about it. Even booze, you can get in here.

"You know when I'm sober, I'm fine. I didn't ever do nothing sober. Never. I was in and out of juvenile detox fourteen times. That was just to sober up. Since I turned eighteen, I have been detoxed forty times.

"I spent eight and a half months in Seg [segregation: isolation from other inmates] this last time. Because I was assaultive and I just didn't care. I was upset about something and during the struggle I assaulted one of staff. So they gave me six months. 180 days in Seg.

"I didn't assault nobody just for the heck of it. I didn't just say, "Oh, you're ugly," and punch someone. I mean they provoked something.

"I was just terribly assaulting. (Laughs) I'm not making light of it but any time they come for me, they need three or four staff.

"Just a bed, steel toilet, and a desktop. There's a window but you can't open it. They had me kneeling when they brought my food in, kneeling on the floor face towards the window with my back to them.

"Like I am here, and way over there is my door, then they open the little slot on the door and throw a bag of food in and shove the slot. Otherwise when I'd be by the slot and they'd open it I'd stick my arm out and they wouldn't be able to close it because I would want air.

"180 days. You get out an hour a day for cigarettes or for rec. Which half the time I didn't even get out and when I did I was in handcuffs and shackles. They showered me like that three times a week, in handcuffs and shackles.

"Then something happened. When you're locked in this little room, things get to you."

*The women in this interview series are actual people, all who gave signed releases and permission for use of their full names. Initials used for the sake of their families.

We read and talk about women and men in prisons but we rarely speak with them because they're locked up. Far too often their voices are lost, ridiculed, or ignored. 150,000 women in prisons, they're too many to ignore.
]]>I Was Born In Prisontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12169132012-01-24T10:43:11-05:002012-03-25T05:12:01-04:00Deborah Jiang Steinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-jiang-stein/Even Tough Girls Wear Tutus: Inside the World of a Woman Born in Prison:

Mother grounded me for some violation I can't remember. She insisted Jonathan, my older brother, and I call her the formal Mother. We're both adopted. I wanted to call her Mama but couldn't let the softness out.

What else does a twelve-year-old girl do when she's grounded but sneak around the house?
I listen a second to make sure I'm alone, then grip and twist the knob. A ray of Seattle's noon sun slants through the glass of the patio door on the far side of the room.

If they come in, I'll slip my slim five-foot frame out the sliding door and escape.

Check the dresser! For no reason other than I'm not supposed to pry into my parents' belongings, something drives me to do whatever I'm not supposed to do. I creep across the room, around my parents' footboard, and face my mother's dresser, tucked next to her nightstand where a bird book, two novels, and three volumes of poetry pile high against her alarm clock.

I slide my mother's top dresser drawer open.

The scent of Mother's French soap collection wafts out of her drawer. She collects soap bar rounds the size of silver dollars wrapped in parchment paper to perfume her drawers filled with neat stacks of folded underwear and stockings bunched in a pile at the back.

Nothing here. I nudge the top drawer closed to move on to the one below but a corner of white catches my eye. A crisp white piece of paper peeks out from under the pink drawer liner, plastic printed with miniature roses.

I peel up a corner of the liner.

I unveil a copy of a typed letter only a paragraph long, lodged under silky slips and parchment-wrapped bars of soaps, under softness and the scent of perfume, stashed like a rumpled stowaway in a first-class cabin.

Must be important if it's hidden. I already know I'm adopted so it can't be about that. Maybe it's about my race, or races. No one's explained to me why I'm brown in a white family, why my skin is caramel colored, often a sienna brown from the sun. Could this letter answer the mystery?

"Can you please alter Deborah's birth certificate," my mother asks in the letter to the family attorney, "from the Federal Women's Prison in Alderson, West Virginia, to Seattle? Nothing good will come from her knowing she lived in the prison before foster care, or that her birthmother was a heroin addict. After all, she was born in our hearts here in Seattle, and if she finds all this out she'll ask questions about the prison and her foster homes before we adopted her."

I read the letter over and over, these new truths imprinted into my memory.

My spine tightens as if someone just jammed a rod down it.

Impossible. Read it again. Everything blurs.

Foster care? I had no idea about anything before my adoption or even how old I was at the time or where I lived before then.

I step back a few paces and sink into the folded comforter at the end of my parents' bed.

Prison?

Born in prison? No one's born in a prison.

The worst word, the worst place, the worst of the worst: Prison.

I tuck the paper back under the liner and walk from the dresser into my parents' bathroom. I end up in front of the mirror over their sink, my body in overload. Time and space distort inside me. I don't know where I am. It's as if my feet lift from the earth, my body and brain separated by some wedge where I'm suspended in mid-air, disconnected from my house, from my neighborhood, from earth, from humanity.

It can't be true. How am I lovable if it is true? Who loves anyone from prison? If people find out my secret, then what?

My skin itches as if tiny ants crawl along the bones in my forearms and I scratch so hard, red streaks rise on my skin. I splash water onto my burning face but give up. None of it washes away what I know isn't there, but I think I'm coated with grime on my cheeks, hot to my hands. I can't stop splashing my face to get rid of the gritty scratch in my eyes and to rinse the sourness in my mouth.

Born in prison? Nobody's born in prison.

Then something sinks in. My "real" mother's an addict and criminal. My "real" home is a prison.
While I don't understand until decades later, the trauma of learning about my prison birth sent me into a deep dive, an emotional lockdown behind a wall which imprisoned me for almost twenty years. The letter forced me into an impossible choice between two mothers, two worlds far apart. One mother in prison, behind bars, a criminal, a drug addict, a woman who tugs at me, her face and voice, images and her sound buried deep in my subconscious. The other mother, the one I face every day, the one who keeps fresh bouquets of flowers on our teak credenza. I don't connect with this mother.

I'm not hers. Not theirs.

It's the first and last time I read the letter, and I've never seen it again. I don't need to, for every word is imprinted in my brain and it's given me all the proof I need. I'm not the daughter of the mother and father who toss Yiddish quips back and forth, the mother who spends her Saturday afternoons throwing clay with a pottery teacher, then comes home with darling miniature ceramics vases. The mother who writes poetry with a Mont Blanc fountain pen and uses the same to correct her students' papers, the mother who cans cherries and whips the best whipped cream ever. The mother who says, "I love you, Pet," so many times I want to smack her. The mother I remind more days than not, "You're not my mother anyway," as I push her away when she tries to hug me.

The mother who waits for me in my ballet training every Saturday.

Don't think about it. It's not true, none of it happened. Not even the letter.

Some things we need to unthink and erase, just to keep living. To even stay alive. But the secrets we bury stay with us forever, glued to our insides like sticky rice.

Everything moves in slow motion as if on a conveyer belt at dinner the night of the letter. The voices of my family sound faint, like an echo far away. I forget I've ever read the letter, forget everything in it. Gone. Zip. Out of my mind and never shows up until another flash in another month. Maybe not a month, maybe eight. I forget this too. It never stays in my brain or anywhere inside me long enough for me to grasp it, but something this big can't hide for long.

I convince myself, "If I don't think of it, then it's not true. It never happened. I never read the letter. I wasn't born in prison."

But that doesn't mean it's not there. It seeps out of me like poison trapped in the pus of a balloon-sized blister.

My life-long battle begins when I force my brain to divorce from reality. It's the only way to metabolize what I've just learned. I was born in prison.]]>What Matters?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11702622011-12-29T17:25:29-05:002012-02-28T05:12:02-05:00Deborah Jiang Steinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-jiang-stein/
Rather than a retrospective on her long career and moving vocals, I find more focus on the web about the dispute related to her estate.

Unlike the lyrics of her song "At Last" (... My love has come along / My lonely days are over / And life is like a song... ), her last days seem more about who gets what and how much, and when.

I know this one, the messy chatter among survivors after people die. I've been surrounded by death and dying this year. Several suicides in my circle, the death of an aunt I loved, then a long-time close friend lost her mother a few days before Christmas. Most recently, a friend from high school, an avid rider, paralyzed some years ago when a horse tossed her, died in her sleep this Christmas week.

I know this one, the story of loss and and what happens to us left as survivors.

Some people go away, some shut down, some harbor resentments, I've seen it all in the circles of death and dying I've witnessed so much over the year. My way is to seek simplicity, and mourn, talk, reflect and bear myself open. Maybe this is one advantage of Shiva, the tradition in Judaism for survivors to gather for seven nights after burial to reflect, eat, celebrate and mourn. It's harder to run away from grief when part of the mourning is to gather and face the process of loss.

So much loss these days calls me to look at what and who matters in life. For sure, what does not matter is resentment or wishing about "what if..." and battling over money or property or who said what and who's right and who's wrong.

How can any of this matter when life itself is so precious?

Rather than resolutions for the new year right now, I'm looking at a year-end tribute to life, not the sideline distractions. How about you? What's in store for the closing of 2011, and ahead for 2012?

Wishing you a joyous, thoughtful, kind and prancy year-end as the door opens to new beginnings.

What do you think? I'd love to hear. Please post your comment below, or email me.

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Email: deborah [at] deborahstein [dot] com]]>Who Says Tough Girls Don't Wear Tutus?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8586142011-05-07T09:03:00-04:002012-01-14T06:54:18-05:00Deborah Jiang Steinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-jiang-stein/here about the influence of her curiosity, and how it saved me. She also taught me about the vitality of joy in the moment. It started with dance.

In third grade, my mother sent me to ballet classes. Every Saturday afternoon she'd walk me down the street to the house at the dead end, and I'd spend an hour every weekend in the neighbor's basement at the bar and sashaying across the oak-wood floor in her homemade studio.

I loved the freedom and silence of dance, the meditation, and the athleticism. Dance was my relief, an escape from the angst building in me about my feeling not normal. The music, movement and physical focus eased a struggle I later learned related to sensory integration issues.

I'm blessed with the exposure my parents gave me. They took my brother and me to theater, ballet, modern dance, poetry readings, museums and everything kooky and experimental in the arts.

The magic of dance and mime touch my soul more than anything, then and now. From the moment I sat in a darkened theater with my parents when I was about eight, and Marcel Marceau tiptoed on stage in his white ballet shoes and mimed inside an invisible box, I dreamed of dancing. But I was a tomboy, and later, a tough girl in a gang of thugs. After high school, tutu and my love of dance just didn't fit with the ten-inch switchblade I tucked in my jeans back pocket and the .38 special I packed in my jacket. I convinced myself, tough girls don't wear tutus. Plus, the ballerinas on stage, and ballerina dolls on shelves in the toy store, only had blond hair, not thick dark wavy hair like mine.

If we're honest with ourselves, many of us at one time or another don't feel "good enough." My reasons back then: The tutu-clad image clashed with my born-in-prison identity, the secret I packed away for decades. I thought being prison-born meant I needed to walk in the world as a tough girl. A prison baby, especially a brown skin one, doesn't wear a tutu. Definitely not a pink tutu.

When my childhood dance training and dance recitals petered out, I pursued another creative interest: writing. But both my parents published poetry and taught English lit, and my dad devoted his career to 17th-century literature. No way would I let them catch me writing. Rebellion got the best of me and I quit writing. Drugs and running the streets called me more.

After high school I trained again as a dancer for a few years and even spent a summer in London to train. When I returned, I dislocated my right knee. The pain and year-long rehab, and return to drugs, pull me out of the studio again.

Tutu Mania

Fast forward to last month. I posted a status update on Facebook, something like, "Working on a memoir chapter about my childhood clash of identities, the tutu and the tough girl. Now all I need is a tutu." Out of nowhere, a dear Facebook friend sends me a tutu. From the moment I wrap it around my waist, I'm in love with it.

The tutu takes on a life of its own. I wear it in unexpected places and begin a tutu photo journal -- tutu in the park on a rainy day, or tutu picking up my kid from school.

Now I write tutu quotes, a perfect metaphor about the ride of life, both frilly and fierce.

Another friend provided me with just the right word for my tutu passion:

Cacoethes (kak-oh-EE-theez) Noun. An irresistible urge: mania.

Not to confuse with cacodyl, a poisonous, oily, flammable liquid which contains arsenic and smells like garlic. The last thing I want on my tutu is flammable oil and garlic scent.

It's true, right now I'm consumed by all things tutu. I get the feeling this goes beyond the chapter I'm in the midst of writing about the power of the tutu and its clash with my childhood identity.

When I researched the roots of the word 'tutu, no wonder I'm drawn to it. The tutu itself is rooted in a clash of opposites. Contrary to its image as an elite garment for the stage or high fashion only, commoners in France first used the word 'tutu.'

'Tutu' is a modification of cucu, French baby-talk for cul-cul, meaning "bottom" or "backside."

Another story offers a similar source for the word. While the wealthy sat in the upper levels in ballet theaters, common folk sat in the lower levels and looked up at the dancer, at her rear end. 'Tutu' refers to the area seen under the ballerina's skirts. An elegant and romantic garment, it's forever tied to its roots to common people.

Tutu for me symbolizes the tension of opposites, exactly my journey and the story of most people. While my prison story is extreme, who doesn't face the tug of conflict and opposition at one time or another?

One answer, find your inner tutu, the place where beauty, even if it's a little kooky, brings relief or joy in the moment. Why not a tutu belt like mine over jeans with boots? Even snow boots.

Who says a tutu is just for a fashion evening out? Once in a while I wear mine at my desk, writing, or I make dinner for the kids in tutu, or on the phone with an editor. Why not wear a tutu as you pay your electric bill or when you wait for hours at the mercy of the phone company's customer service?

Though I'm no longer tough, yes, tough girls do wear tutus. I thank my mother for this wisdom and freedom, a woman who allowed the tension of opposites to live in me. For the spirit of this tug of opposites and how it stirs in me, I thank my prison mom. Each mother, in a different way, taught me to embrace life with curiosity and all its play and adventure.

They're both gone now, and sometimes I ache for their presence -- although I'm not sure how they'd like my tutu mania. But that's okay because my two young daughters get to reap the benefits of their mama in a tutu.

Gratitude all around on this Mother's Day.

I hope you seek play and purpose in your life. Where do you find whimsy? How do you adventure in life? I'd love to hear. Please post your comments below.

Not just a day for the mothers we know or knew, today's one of remembrance for those who seek their mother, the women who've lost a child, the women who mother though not a mum, and mothers in every form around the world.

If you're interested in learning more about The Tutu Project, and a custom Prison Baby Tutu, please email deborah@deborahstein.com.

* * * * *

Make sure to click "Fan" at the top of this page so you won't miss future posts.

Could my fascinations with snake handling stem from my birth roots in the Appalachia Mountain region, where snake handling still exists? I doubt that's why, but I get to imagine anything I want about what happened behind those prison walls where I was born.

For as long as I can recall -- from the time I learned to drive in high school -- I'd scout different places of worship. All that people do to seek salvation, to alleviate suffering, intrigues me.

Some weekends in high school, I'd walk alone into a church, temple, or hole-in-the-wall house of worship. As a total stranger, I'd sit anywhere, read and sing with others, participate in whatever I chose, and feel and observe the rest. I'm sure, like everything else back then, I did this on the sly and never told my parents, especially my Orthodox-raised mother.

One time in high school I rounded up a girlfriend and we ended up in the basement of a building somewhere. I sat in the front row, and when people started to speak in tongues, they almost startled me out of my metal folding chair. At first it terrified me, the body gyrations and the shouts and mysterious word chants, which I first thought tried to decipher, thinking I was supposed to understand.

Even today, I still don't know what I witnessed there for sure. It wasn't until I left that my friend told me this was a language all its own. I can't forget the passion in those that spoke. That stayed with me. At the time I figured it was all a secret code to their salvation.

I didn't need any, I figured.

Snake handling is the outcast of religious practices, from what I can tell. Judgments tossed about their class, lack of education, more which I can't seem to pin down. Outcast, though -- that's something most mutts understand, the outsider feeling. Really, who hasn't felt this at one time or another?

What intrigues me about snake handling is the power of belief. In the practice of snake handling, if you aren't bitten, it's said to be the sign of a miracle. And if you are bitten, and survive, wow, that really is a miracle. Since snakes make me a little squirmy, especially three-foot yellow timber rattlesnakes, I'd say the miracle is best left in its two-foot wooden box, behind its sliding wire-screen top.

They say rattlers have a dry feel. Sandpapery. They say a rattler can find a snake handler in the dark, that they seek the body heat. Don't we all, though.

If the spirit's in you, believers say, you aren't bitten. And if you're empty, spiritless, well, I guess the snake knows. It'll bite you. Simple as that.

If I were a snake handler, I'd tell you, "Watch out. Fill yourself up." You decide what to pour into yourself to "fill." If I were you, though, I'd stay away from filling up with excesses of alcohol, meth or other pleasure drugs, fatty foods, all the things we consume in excess to feed an emptiness inside. There are better pursuits, more fun, like curiosity, creativity, play, humor, exercise, work where you find a passion, a private spiritual path.

Speaking of miracles on the path of spiritual seeking, take Punkin Brown, the top snake handler in modern times. He believed in his miracle, snakebite after snakebite after snakebite. Then one day, he didn't even flinch when a rattler sunk its fang into the base of his left middle finger. He died from that bite, so we can't ask him what happened to his miracles.

We can, however, believe in the power of miracles for ourselves. Snakeless ones. Think of all the coincidences in your life. Or synchronicity, which pretty much plagues me these days. What about when the unforeseen happens? Destiny. Fate. Karma. Miracle. Call it what you will, it's better than snakebites.

I bet the odds are better, too, for miracles versus snakebites, and from my experience beating the odds, it's often possible.

Look at these odds. Outside the practice of snake handling for religious purposes, the chances of receiving a venomous snakebite are very low. Worldwide, there are between one and two million snakebite incidents per year, and those numbers result in less than 100,000 snakebite fatalities -- and remember, that's on the entire planet.

See what I mean? I'm sure the world holds more miracles, or acts of destiny, fate, karma or synchronicity, than snakebites.

Thought for the day: Be kind to animals, even snakes, and yes, mutts, too. Be kind to everybody. In doing so, remain curious, and explore what intrigues you. Believe that good things can happen, unexpected and with no apparent reason. Kindness, curiosity, belief. They all work for me.

*About mutts: Although I use this as a positive descriptive and reference to my multi-racial status, in truth, everyone is multi-ingrediented. In my view, we're all mutts, meaning a fusion of contrasts and contradictions. If you don't think you are, then dig deeper.

Make sure to click "Become a Fan" at the top of this post so that you won't miss future posts.

Find me:
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-E-mail: deborah@deborahstein.com]]>What's With the Jewish-Man/Asian-Woman Connection, Anyway?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.7724002010-11-04T14:03:00-04:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00Deborah Jiang Steinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-jiang-stein/
Let's say you're out alone one summer night and you pop into a sushi bar. You're single and hot with your creamy, caramel-colored skin, and the white guy at the end of the sushi bar eyes you.

So you cozy up your multiracial, muttilicious, Taiwanese-Latina self to the sushi bar, two seats away from him. As Rae Dawn Chong (actress and true mutt*: her father is Eurasian comedian Tommy Chong, and her mother is Black and Cherokee), says, "You can seduce a man without taking anything off, without even touching him."

Huh? How does that work? Not even touching? I gotta learn that. Anyway, we all have those inner voices, and back at the sushi bar, your inner voice goes, "But would he take me home to his mama?"

Then another talk bubble lights up, that inner voice that's even deeper in your gut. That voice says, "He'll never guess I'm adopted and grew up in a Jewish family, either," -- yet by the time you finish that thought, you've lost interest because just the look in his eyes suggests that he's not up to your standards. So you leave him in the dust at the sushi bar.

The crossover between races has been trendy for some years now, specifically white men desiring and being attracted to non-white women. Not that this can't be downright pure human connection. Be aware, though, of what's trend and what's true attraction. Unfortunately, many Westerners can't tell the difference between Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Korean, or Vietnamese.

While there's no proof or evidence for the Jewish-Asian affinity, and no one seems to know the why and what about Jewish men and Asian women, many acknowledge that it exists. On the dating side, some men may fetishize women of Asian heritage, and this may fit into a standard patriarchal presumption that women in general are subservient.

On a more serious approach, Jews and East Asians share a similar sense of wit and humor, along with other common cultural ground and history. Both Jews and Chinese have been referred to as "people of the book," when, especially in the United States, the intellectual appears to be fading from the American culture. The Jewish Buddhist dialogue is interesting, too. "JewBu" is a sprouting and strong practice, and the spiritual ties are deep.

One other overlap of experience involves similarities in family values and upbringing. Friends I know who have either Asian-born or Asian-American mothers tell me about the emotional manipulation within their families. Clearly, Jews don't corner the market on this neurosis.
I'd rather take the connection past the romantic links, since it is what it is -- it just exists, and who knows why? I'd rather elevate the union to something we all know about. Food!

The Asian/Jewish food fusion earns some interesting culinary attention -- specifically, Chinese food and Jews, or Chinese and Jewish foods. Now we're talking mutty hybrid action! One could say the Chinese have gone Kosher in that China is now the world's fastest-growing producer of kosher-certified food. More than 500 Chinese factories produce the approved products. (Just to clarify, keeping kosher is following the Jewish dietary laws of kashrut, a way to elevate the act of eating from mundane to holy.)

If food is really the way to a man's (and a woman's) heart, then does that offer an answer to my original curiosity about the Jewish-men-Asian-women connection?

I think it's much more complex. But for now, I'll add one other explanation: the food connection. I'm not the only one thinking this. Genghis Cohen restaurant in New York and Los Angeles is proof that I'm not making this up. The name says it all. Think vegetable-fried knish (skip pork-fried), sweet and sour matzo ball soup, chopped liver with bean sprouts, teriyaki gefilte fish, and pan-fried luxion kugel (with cherry sauce). Not that these necessarily list on their menu, but they're in my imagination.

The Jewish-Asian fusion is not in the imagination, however. Look around. You'll see it.

In closing, I'll leave you with two suggestions.

In the Buddhist tradition, a no-thought for the day: I am not what others think I am, nor am I what I think I am, for thoughts cannot define the indefinable.

In the Jewish tradition, a thought for the day: Live your truth, even if it feels like just when you've learned all the answers, someone changed all the questions. The axiom "the more we know, the more we know we don't know" is true, so live true to what your heart says.

All in all, I choose to live in the question. It helps in life to not get too stubborn about our answers. Sometimes questions are the answers. For example, What's with the Jewish-man-Asian-woman connection, anyway?

What are your thoughts?

*About Mutts: Although I use this as a positive descriptive and reference to my multi-racial status, in truth, everyone is multi-ingrediented. In my view, we're all mutts, meaning a fusion of contrasts and contradictions. If you don't think you are, then dig deeper.

Speaking of mutts, I'm one of the first order: Greek, Asian, Latina, and there's more. DNA testing will reveal the rest. Yes, and I'm Jewish, first by adoption and now by practice. My Asian strain is, I'm told, Filipina; however DNA testing finds Taiwanese. Ah, the mysteries of being adopted. I can live with it, though, since I feel lucky to be alive after my roots in prison and heroin addiction.

***

This is another post for Mutts Like Me. It is also an excerpt from my essay that will be published in an anthology called "Voices of the Asian American Experience."

Please post a comment below, or feel free to email me at deborah@deborahstein.com. Make sure to click "Become a Fan" at the top of this page so that you won't miss future posts from me.

Find me on Facebook, Twitter, my website, and my blog.]]>Synchronicity On the Risetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6985642010-08-31T13:46:02-04:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00Deborah Jiang Steinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-jiang-stein/What are the odds of this?

All about a name, the name of my birth mother whom I only knew in the Federal Women's Prison in Alderson, West Virginia, where I was born heroin-addicted, and where she served one of her many sentences. We lived together in prison for my first year, then never again met. Our mother-daughter bond severed when a federal marshal removed me from the prison and I became a ward of the court. The trauma of this separation took years for me to even acknowledge.

Everywhere I turn, there she is. First, I meet a memoirist, Martha Frankel, who, for my memoir in progress, provided a blurb with insights into my journey that even I'd missed in my own story.

Next, a few days later I call the phone company with a question. A Martha answers. I almost want to hang up on her. I don't need the reminder, for god's sake. I have all the reminder I need about my beloved prison mother, now deceased. Nine hundred pages of her prison file sit in my closet as one reminder of her story. My first year in prison also unfolds throughout these 900 pages.

Why do I need more reminders? I still treasure some of her prison crafts, a thread to her love for me, and mine for her. One, a yarn toy dog, I display in my home. The baby sweaters she knitted for me nestle in wrapping tissue in a suitcase with other mementos.

However, I like to focus on the present, with what's taking a lifetime to integrate about my prison birth. What else is life for but to weave our layers into a tapestry, a beautiful cloak of multicolored fabric, silk and burlap together?

Meanwhile, one Martha after another appear in my world.

CAN I GET A BREAK?

Last week I returned from a tour of my prison birthplace where I addressed the inmates, a journey that stunned the very balance out of me. Note to self: Learn how a messenger carries her passion to thousands, and at the same time does not absorb their wounds and energy.

I offer my story in prisons so that the inmates can envision a new dream, witness what's possible for themselves and for their children left behind. Even though my past wounds might re-open (or might not), it's worth the risk because at the same time I offer my present triumphs, also a reminder to me of how far I've traveled. There but for the grace of fortune, I might have served multiple life sentences myself for my history of lawbreaking.

My path isn't one I follow with complete ease. Not yet. While some speakers give a talk, I share corners of my soul. My work is not a verb, to talk.

I've discovered that my sole purpose with women in prisons is to garden, to plant a seed that stirs curiosity about what's possible for personal change in mind, spirit, and body. I stand in the shoes of "If I can do this, so can you."

It's no coincidence that I'm far from the wild spirit who soared and never landed. Okay, I'm still a little wild, and I still soar, but I now have help to land. I stand on the shoulders of many, many women who walk with me, who push me when I think I have no more to give, who, when I fill with doubt, allow me to question, and then offer insights. When I wonder about my purpose, when I fall, I am carried by many. When I'm re-traumatized or occasionally struggle with still, emotional delays, and what still seem to be a rewire of my brain, I'm led by many who take my hand and say, "Let's go." I hope you have this kind of mountain to lean against in your life, also.

The timing, this synchronicity of women holding me during the exact days I walk into prisons to embrace our sisters behind bars, occurred just as I prepared to enter my prison home again. Even with all this support, after the exhilaration and exhaustion of my days in the Alderson prison, I still wrestle to find my way in the world again.

I need relief more than reminders. No matter what's going on, self care helps me regain balance, and I keep a list handy and ready to use for personal R&R -- rebound and recovery. (Please feel free to add to my list over on my Mutts-Like-Me blog in the comments area.)

TO RUN AWAY, OR NOT

Is it running to wish that no more Marthas appear? Please, no more Marthas, at least until I metabolize my days "back home" in prison.

Not to run away or anything, but right now I don't really need more reminders about the woman who gave me prison as my first home. Out of this recent journey into my past, my head and my heart overflow with images and sensory memories about her.

How about this. Let me first complete at least one of the several essays I'm struggling to write about this prison tour. Writing will put more pieces together, and I also want so much to share the inside, the guts of my journey and prison tour with friends and readers.

Once I finish even one of these essays about my prison tours, then all the Martha's who want to show up in my life, have at it. Call me, write, friend me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, anything but stalk me ... bring it on.

But can you please wait until I finish these essays that just don't seem to flow? This writer doesn't need the distraction into all the mystery about synchronicity. I have enough mystery in my life right now, all about my fate and destiny, all about women and mothers in prisons, and their children.

Running is one of my past specialties, but after diving last week into the fire, immersing myself into my beloved first home for a few days, I can't say I'm a runner any more.

A friend from Facebook, Sharon Heath, a Jungian analyst and novelist, provided me this Henry Miller remark, and it's kept me on track from running. "Every time we run away from ourselves, we're thrown back with greater force." That's enough to scare anyone into facing herself, isn't it?

I'm facing it, baby, full force, and when I come out the other side, I hope I recognize myself because even as I write this, my cells are shifting from the whole experience last week.

WHAT'S WITH THE "NAME THANG?"

My beloved prison mother, however, never used her given name, Martha. She went by Margo, a name I've not ever encountered. Until recently.

A few weeks before I left to return to my prison home, I engaged in a conversation on Sharon's wall about Mary Oliver poetry. Sharon and I had never interacted before this other than to become Facebook friends. A flow of comments ensued with a few women in Sharon's thread and we all chatted about my bringing Mary Oliver poetry into the prisons. That Facebook exchange, by the way, altered the tenor of my prison work.

A woman named Margo showed up in this dialogue. After a few days, this Margo and I friended one another.

Quite honestly, the name connection troubled me some at first, yet I thought, "Why bother to tell a complete stranger that her name haunts me?" I've never met this woman, and after all, it's only a name. I hesitated, and then a week or so ago, I casually mentioned the fact. At the time, we left it with a simple acknowledgment of this synchronicity.

Over this brief period since we've met, through emails I've learned another strange twist. This Margo has her own deep story about the fierce and tender power of separation between mother and child. She was estranged from her two young children for a period in her life, and she's since been in the process of family healing and reconciliation.

Our stories, while not alike by fact, mirror one another with themes of abandonment, sorrow, guilt, freedom, reconciliation, redemption and that which is not reconcilable. We share more, too. She's a mutt of the highest order, a racial category I proudly claim about my multiracial mishmash.

There's more. From the few photos I've seen, this woman has an uncanny resemblance -- minor, but it's there -- to my prison mother, Margo. Yikes. Talk about unexpected turns in life. I love surprise, but for this one, I've had to brace myself.

What are the odds of my encountering multiple Martha's, and then a Margo whose story reflects a kind of reversal of mine?

This synchronicity occurs during the height of my dive into working with women in prisons. The "name thang" slants my world even more during these days when I'm vulnerable beyond belief about my trip home to where my story begins with Margo, the mother who gave me more than prison as my birthplace. She gave me my first stable loving home. So what if it's a prison?

In all of this, I'm writing my memoir. Don't you think I have enough name reminders in the face of everything?

Synchronicity like this, I'd say the odds are greater for lightening to strike a person. Exactly what happened to me last week during my return to my tender prison home. I'm still sifting through bursts of awe, still struck by flashes of "Whose life is this, anyway?"

[What the hell? In-the-moment synchronicity occurred within minutes after this posted. See my comment below. Okay Universe, I get it. You've made your point. Which is... well, I don't know exactly.]

What do you think? I invite you to post your comment below, on Facebook, or email me.

]]>Press the Reset Button: Part 2tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6570332010-07-27T15:50:00-04:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00Deborah Jiang Steinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-jiang-stein/
Flow charts, graphs and pie charts are some of the entertainment that got me through my degree in economics. Besides the fact that econ was one of the (legal) rebellions against my English professor poet and literary critic parents.

Earning my degree took me forever, through three different states across the country and four different colleges. All that moving added extra years, more parties, more boyfriends and girlfriends. Isn't that what college is about?

As my professors lectured about Adam Smith, Milton Friedman and the law of diminishing returns, I sat in the back of my mostly male classes and fanned through my textbooks looking for pie charts and flow charts. When one captured my attention, I'd pencil sketch arrows and trace the graph lines. Sometimes I'd shade in the shapes, or re-outline the rectangles and triangles. I'd doodle and imagine another world where supply and demand did not rule, a world where everyone, everywhere would have enough food.

Imagining a better world, and working to contribute, came naturally to me because my ultra-liberal parents enforced social consciousness in our home. But behind all that social awareness sat the Big Secret: Around age 12 I discovered I was born in a prison. Actually two big secrets -- the other that I was heroin-addicted at birth. For over a decade, I never told anyone I knew about this, and the Secrets turned into years and years of rebellion and rage, lawlessness, drugs and all that goes with that lifestyle. Think crime, destruction and self-destruction.

My thinking at the time went like this: If I'm the offspring of someone cast out of society, which is precisely the role of prison, than I, too, am an outcast. Growing up multiracial in the 1960s and adopted in a Jewish family was, in my view then, enough outcast for me. I was sure I didn't belong anywhere and life as a delinquent girl and an outlaw adult seemed my destiny.

My last post I wrote about my journey, more like my jolt, into reinventing myself. My practice of t'ai chi teaches me more than silent movement mediation. I also gain an awareness of my abilities to walk on fire and walk through hell. My practice helps me relax into parts of my life that I want to transform. I've also discovered three elements I pull from the practice of t'ai chi which also work for personal life changes. Here they are.

Attitude, Strength, Solid and Empty

Of course, first don't forget to breathe. We need that!

Then for me, it all begins with attitude, a desire to choose change. I may not yet reach for "reset," but I have to open my mind frame to the possibility.

Next, I find strength in my core. I go inside for my internal foundation. It's different for different people, and can't always be described. For some it's religion; others, a spiritual base; and for me, I don't name it and quite honestly, don't know what it is other than a strong core source of energy inside. It's powerful and enduring, and I embrace it even when I don't understand what it is.

Next, although it's not easy for me, I anchor myself somehow, or I'll fly all over. Have you ever tugged on a doorknob when the door is stuck?

All of sudden you fly backwards! Now imagine if you had planted your feet in preparation, before reaching for the doorknob, before any tug, and cleared your mind of any expectation. The door might be stuck, it might not, but with a firm stance, you'll be ready. Your feet slightly apart, maybe shoulder width, your knees bent a little. That stance I call solid and empty. Strong yet relaxed, ready for an easy open, or for a tug.

Are you thinking, what the heck does this have to do with doodles in her economics class?

Not much, other than my love of all things visual and noodling around with personal flow charts and pie charts to make it fun for me to visualize the real world. Isn't reality sometimes hard enough to take? So why not play with it? And flow charts and pie charts are healthier than drugs to alter reality.

I've created a flow chart for my "Enough" moments, that "something has GOT to change" notion that hits me when the time is right. You can see it when you press HERE

Why not take a deep breath, and reset what doesn't work in life? Take several deep breaths. Change is an adventure. I've reinvented myself a number of times. It's fun actually. I keep what works, and shed the rest. (I have no idea where it goes, but it goes.)

Make sure your footing is firm, and get ready to press, or bang, your reset button. Good luck with it!

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Email: deborah@deborahstein.com
]]>Your Reset Button: Do You Bang or Press It?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6464722010-07-16T16:49:00-04:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00Deborah Jiang Steinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-jiang-stein/
I usually choose fiction over real life. The process, however, has me tracking how I made it this far alive; I'm struck by how many times I've pressed "reset" and eased into a life transformation. Once I decide to change, I dive in, a jump-in-the-fire kind of person and sometimes to my detriment, I act first and see what happens, think, later. Although I don't recommend this. In fact, I work hard to teach my young children to do the opposite.

My style is to slam myself into change, even if I fight it, I bang that reset button. Maybe it's because I like adventure. Reckless, I've been called, only now I'm aware of this trait so I can tame it if I want.

Most people I know don't jump into change but everyone, at one time or another, presses their reset button. Life change happens all the time whether we want it or not, and often it's done with caution. Pounce into change, or sneak in like kitten. It's still reset. Bang or press.

Others can press our reset, too, and when that's happened to me, I can choose how I respond. A career change, breakup, death, serious illness -- they might each force a reset. I've faced them all, and I've learned that no one else can control how I view anything. This is tough to remember all the time, but worth the effort and gives me a lot of freedom.

Wherever I Go, There I Am

One day when my reckless behavior (all over the country) led me into way too much trouble, I thought: something has GOT to change. Thank goodness for that day, or I'd never have embraced the adventures of reinventing myself, and in fact, would not be alive today either.

In my past, I barely escaped incarceration. Multiple times, and just barely. As many times I escaped being shot, stabbed, beaten or run over. Some, I did not escape (these escapades will show up in my memoir.)

Running from myself was harder than escaping other people closing in on me -- cops, crooks, even family. I finally figured out that wherever I went -- moving state to state, city to city, even leaving the country -- there I was.

I didn't know it then, but as soon as I had the thought, "Something has GOT to change," I was headed in the direction of resetting my life.

By the time I returned to college I'd left my outlaw past behind, and I felt lucky that I could look down at the grass, instead of looking up at it. My "reset" to leave my past and continue college led me to eventually find my voice. For a once-mute girl, as I had been, "voice" has a whole different meaning. When speech finally came to me easier than silence, I reached out to others who had no voice in another sense, especially to inmates. Especially to mothers in prisons.

I've returned to my roots now, back to prisons as a speaker, and even to the federal prison where I was born. For reasons I'm still learning to understand about this calling, this life-circle, (I mean literally calling, too) when wardens phone or email me, I often think, "Huh? Back to prison? Again?" I've learned to live in the question though. All is revealed in time, I keep telling myself, and am lucky to have others to remind me.

Sometimes it takes the physical to get me into my heart and head, and then out of it, to just let myself be. My body in a sense of flow and change helps me head into personal transformations. From t'ai chi and yoga to working the speed bag, lifting weights, roller skate and I also like to jump rope, trampoline, and hula hoop, they all prepare my spirit for change.

I learned about mind/body balance from my father, a scholar of 17th century literature and a man who spent most of his time inside his head. Way inside his head. Think absent minded professor times three. He taught me by example that a body in shape helps keep the mind and heart in tune, serving our spirit and thinking. It was one of the few things I didn't rebel against with him. I like balance in every form, so I practice this.

You can imagine my young daughters in all my workouts, thinking, "What on earth is Mama doing in the middle of the living room with a hula hoop, and please, don't let her do this on play dates when friends are over."

Whatever it takes, "reset" is worth the adventure of change and transformation. I'm telling myself this as I struggle with my deep connections to prisons, a calling that doesn't go away even if I wanted. But then, something tells me I'm not in the driver's seat.

Next time I'll post details of the steps I take to start a reset. Until then, enjoy your ride of reinvention and discovering what and how you want to reset in your life.

]]>QUIZ: Do You Need a Mother ... Mentor, Spiritual Advisor or Life Coach?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6019492010-06-07T13:44:00-04:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00Deborah Jiang Steinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-jiang-stein/It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.

-- Anne Sexton

June is the month of Father's Day, but I'm still on the mother-theme of last month.

One advantage to having a lot of mothers in early life (like me) is that...

Oh, let me think about this a little more because I know there's got to be some advantage to this. It's just not coming to me right now.

Maybe this is why mother-types keep showing up in my life. They keep stepping in when, well, I don't really know why they show up. I'm a grown woman, for God's sake! And can't they see that I'm a mother of two young children myself? Who keeps asking these mother-mutts to emerge out of nowhere? I have no idea. But God knows I'm glad they do, 'cause they do me a lot of good...even when I resist. (About Mutts: We're all mutts, meaning a fusion of contrasts and contradictions. The concept started with a reference to multi-racial, but in truth, everyone is multi-ingrediented.)

I've been lucky to have many who are splendid mentors. Other people use life coaches, or spiritual advisers. Me, I have these mother-mutt types to call on. I've learned a lot from them. Not all are Mutts-Like-Me, but in my world, to know one is to be one, so I call them Mother-Mutts. They get to be mutts by association, as least around me. And besides, I believe that each person can find her inner mutt.

Mother-mutts have floated into my life long before the movement for life coaches and mentors. For me, it's been life-long.

It's all the rage now to find a life coach, and I think I know why. It's more than there are millions of Baby Boomers (and not as many 20-something retired tech millionaires) feeling that give-back spirit. And this is not about the happiness movement. I'm not one to follow trends.

I think we seek life-guidance-type people now, more than ever, because over the years, we (yes, probably you, too) have been obsessed with acquisition. Acquiring more.

Along the way, we isolated ourselves. What got left behind? We lost track of what really matters: our purpose and meaning, without the stuff. Millions of people discovered this in 2008, and into the present, when everything we counted on crashed. Stocks, jobs, homes, they all tumbled.

Without the external trappings, all we're left with is ourselves, the core of who we are. Don't get me wrong, I love stuff, too: my classic car collection, jewelry, property, shoes, shoe, shoes, did I mention shoes? Stuff, stuff, stuff. But I can walk away from it all in a minute.

That's one advantage to having been a foster child. We learn how to uproot, move on and leave everything behind. We just have to get through all the rest of the trauma, like going to hell and back, which is a lot of hard work. Yet very possible. That's my message when I speak to foster youth, and it fits for everyone: maybe we can't control the waves, but we certainly can learn to swim, surf or sail.

But since most of you reading this probably aren't former foster kids, I'll get back on track here.

Stuff is all good, but not when that's the sole purpose for living. Now that we're coming out of an era when life's meaning was gauged by acquisition, more people are searching for purpose and meaning, beyond our Stuff.

It's time to learn if you need a mother-mutt, mentor, spiritual adviser, life coach or not.

It's easy! For each question 1-5, answer:

a) Yes, I agreeb) No, I disagreec) How am I supposed to know?

Then, afterward, graph your answers and you'll know if it's time or not to reach out for your personal Mother-Mutt, Mentor, Spiritual Advisor or Life Coach.

Here goes, and be honest with yourself:

1) I've run out of my own answers to just about everything. I could use help.

a) Yes, I agree. b) No, I disagree. c) How am I supposed to know?

2) I like attention from mother-types (women or men,) mutts or not, even if they don't know any more than I do.

a) Yes, I agree. b) No, I disagree. c) How am I supposed to know?

3) Everyone has one, so I better get one.

a) Yes, I agree. b) No, I disagree. c) How am I supposed to know?

4) Am I willing to do anything to stay out of prison? Even if it means signing up with a Mother-Mutt, Mentor, Spiritual Advisor, or Life Coach?

a) Yes, I agree (...but one good thing about prison: I'll learn how to boil rice on a radiator so the guard doesn't notice, or how to make grilled cheese with an iron when you're on laundry duty.)

b) No, I disagree. c) How am I supposed to know?

5) The more knowledge input, the better. Law of diminishing returns does not apply here.

a) Yes, I agree. b) No, I disagree. c) How am I supposed to know?

Now count how many answers for Yes, No, or How am I supposed to know?

Next, chart your solutions. HERE'S HOW:

Just fill in how many squares for each Yes, No, or How am I supposed to know?

Like this:

What It All Means

Contrary to what you might think, if you answered:

More Yes's: You do not need a Mother-Mutt, Mentor, Spiritual Advisor, or Life Coach. You're doing fine all on your own. And besides, you might not be teachable.

More No's: Get help as soon as possible! Find a mother-mutt by nightfall, tomorrow.

More How am I supposed to know?: Struggle along all by yourself for a little more. You're not ready.

No matter how your quiz turned out, safe travels on your adventures in the world of Mutts-Like-Me.

Make sure to sign up for this blog so that you won't miss future quizzes for Mutts-Like-Me.

Last year, around this time, I wrote about Passover: Why not a Haggadah in 140 Characters? (You can read it here.)

Positive feedback came in from all faiths: Jews (secular to Orthodox, and everything in between,) Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Buddhist, and non-believers. The emails and re-postings gave me pause...there might be a good market for the following in 140-character form:

The Torah
The Bible, Old and New Testament
The Koran
The Book of Common Tibetan Buddhist Prayers
and even Winnie the Pooh

I'm not being disrespectful here. Pooh offers great wisdom.

My family of mutts includes every faith and walk of life. Indie Jews, Orthodox, Reform, Ortho-Conservative, Christians of all kinds, Jews of Color -- you name it. If anything is worth reading (and these all are) then there's nothing wrong with simplicity. Why not distill these age-old Books of Wisdom down to key characters? (No, not Abraham and Esther, not these kinds of characters. I mean the Track Changes kind of characters.)

Six words! Who needs 140-characters when we can get the message across in six words.

We've got the six-word memoir, which is a favorite of mine. (But something tells me my agent won't go for that. This doesn't mean I can't condense my life down to six-words without her permission, or anyone else's. I just have to figure out which six: does it include prison, or heroin, or foster care, adoption, gangs, guns, smuggling, crime? It has to include reconciliation and redemption...jeepers, I think I'm already way over six.)

Back to our Books of Wisdom. If you've ever sat through a two or three hour Seder the way I have, or for that matter, any service or gathering that long, then you'll know why I keep looking into how to distill things down. I continue to speculate that Catholics secretly dream of drive-through confession or Lessons and Carols, and Lutherans wish for fast food lemon and chocolate bars rather than their basement post-services social hour. More like hours.

Can every Resurrection Sunday prayer be condensed into one meaningful six-word sentence? If so, what would it be? (I won't venture there, since I don't know them all.)

I do know a six-word Haggadah is in order here, don't you think? If a 140 character Haggadah could get the Seder down to less than five minutes, as I suggested last year, then a six-word Haggadah - - well, that's not even enough time for Elijah to appear. A Seder in six words. What choice words should be chosen?

We'll have more time to talk about all the missed material that was skipped in the Haggadah. All the words left out besides the Six.

If those six words are to come from the Four Questions (questions that are a central theme of the Seder meal, and a highlight of the Passover festival) then we'd probably have to choose these six: Why bread, herbs, bitter herbs, reclining?

Any other six words you can think of that matter more? Please email or post them here.

Good thing we've got another twelve months to figure out how the next best approach to Passover and Easter.

]]>Who In The World Invented Track Changes?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.4940822010-03-11T14:16:00-05:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00Deborah Jiang Steinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-jiang-stein/Is anyone in their right mind able to really work with all the action behind track changes in a document?

What was the Microsoft programmer thinking when building this feature?

I know it's useful but I'm thinking: How can it be good if the whole experience of working with Track Changes in a document is like a circus on the page, words walking on a high wire with a light show underneath, arrows and dotted lines stabbing about the page like zaps of electricity.

What's with all the lines and colors and highlighted material? I'm rebelling against it. I like the delete feature, and the keyboard for new data entry. That's it.

I have a better function for Track Changes, on a more important level. Whenever we go through a major personal life transformation, why aren't we left with a thread of connection, even a breadcrumb trail to the past? We're each, then, surrounded with a web of lines and arrows and highlighted "changes." In this realm, though, no delete. Do-over does not exist. Start over does. We can re-invent as much as we want. I have.

With a personal Track Changes feature, others can see our pasts - full disclosure. Our personal history, and all that changed to make us who we are today, tracked via highlighted colors, lines, arrows...you know the whole menu of Track Changes.

Wouldn't you like your own personal Track Changes feature?

It's not exactly in tune with any other self-help or personal development, but it seems like a perfect solution for keeping track of who we are and where we've been, don't you think? Our life history - there for all to see.

Email or drop a note with your feedback. If you like the idea of a personal Track Changes, I'll invent it.